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Chapter 8. Sacramento-San Joaquin System

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Chapter 8. Sacramento-San Joaquin System Chapter 8. Sacramento-San Joaquin System F. Thomas Griggs and Stefan Lorenzato Introduction The Great Central Valley of California occupies 22,500 square miles (58,000 square kilometers) in the interior of northern and central California. At the time of the Gold Rush in 1849, nearly 1 million acres (1,600 square miles, 4,000 square kilometers) of riparian vegetation covered the Central Valley floor along with approximately an equal area of wetlands. The riparian area flourished in the large river basins and along river channels (Katibah 1984; Thompson 1961). The Central Valley is partly defined by the Sacramento River in the north, the San Joaquin River in the south, and the Delta where the two rivers meet and turn westward toward San Francisco Bay (figs. 27a and 27b). The valley is made up of a series of basins connected by the rivers, which form a distributary floodway. Before development, heavy winter and spring runoff would flow out of the river channels and drain to the basins until waters were deep enough to continue their flow to the Delta. As flows subsided, water would sit in the basins until evaporated or it seeped into the ground. The wetland and riparian lands were nourished by these flows and extended across the low-lying areas in the valley trough and basin sinks. The land surface consisted of shallow undulating ridges and swales, creating complex soil-water-plant interactions that provided a great diversity of hydrology, vegetation, water depth and velocities, and timing. The result was a rich and dynamic system that dependably provided a mix of microhabitats and physical features (Kelley 1989; Thompson 1961). These features that provided such a diversified ecology hindered agriculture. As cropping systems expanded to take advantage of the rich soils, riparian forests were cut down, land leveled for ease of production, and waterways rerouted. Today, the Great Central Valley of California grows over 200 crops and generates over 32 billion dollars annually in agricultural revenue (CDFA 2015), primarily due to its unique, and highly developed, hydrology and the complex patterns of alluvial soils that support diverse agricultural practices. But only about 2 percent to 4 percent of the riparian habitats remain (California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s VegCamp Program 2011). Central Valley River Basins and Forces of Change The Great Central Valley is comprised of a set of linked basins (table 9). The basins’ edges are marked by low rises in the land surface that control drainage patterns of overland flow. The rivers of the Central Valley flow through the basins in relatively small channels from the foothill watersheds to the Delta where north and south flows combine and head west into San Pablo and San Francisco Bays (figs. 27a and 27b). Historically, flood flows in the valley were often flashy, flood peaks emerging from the upper watersheds in high volumes over short periods. The broad, flat basins of the valley floor readily absorbed the flows that escaped the channels. With these flashy flows came sediments that similarly were carried away from the channels and deposited in the basins. The resulting mosaic of soils and residual moisture provide large expanses of land USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-411. 2020. 211 Sto er ny C laus Riv re nis ek Sta S a n J k o e a umne River e q uol r u T C in N e er I v tt R Ri u i ed S v c B e er A r M B C r Creek O a E S Be L T AN k U e T re wens C r S O U Rive Feat lla A J chi B O how AQ C h U e er r IN Fresno Riv Ri B A v SI r e iver ive r R N in R ba Joaqu Yu San B SUTTER A S S a IN c r r am BASIN e e n v i to R R s i g v n e Ki r T U L A R A E M E R I C C a T er A ule Riv ch e N Cr eek B A S r I N e an R iv ic B r e A m S A IN IN h Creek S ta A N u I B P S A B r O e O iv L T R N s O e Y E n M m u A R Legend Cos C A Flood Bypass S Legend Reservoirs M Reservoirs ¯ o r e k Riv Stream e lu ne Stream ¯ m * Basin delineation by Steven M. Brumbaugh 03 6 12 18 24 * Created by Steven M. Brumbaugh 05 10 20 30 40 based on Figure 9 from Gilbert (1917) Miles based on USGS basin delineation. Miles Figure 27a—Sacramento Historic Basins. All figures in this Figure 27b—San Joaquin and Tulare Basins. chapter are by Kevin Coulton, P.E. and CFM , Seungjin Baek, Ph.D., P.E., cbec eco engineering, as part of a USEPA Wetlands Development Grant to the California Department of Water Resources (grant CD-00T83701). Table 9—Hydrologic distributary basins of the Central Valley of California and their areas. Basin Approximate acres Butte Basin 99,877 Colusa Basin 318,225 Yolo Basin 178,268 Sutter Basin 368,697 Sacramento Basin 95,545 American Basin 246,402 Lower San Joaquin 104,500 Middle San Joaquin 370,000 Upper San Joaquin 484,000 Tulare 540,000 212 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-411. 2020. where flood-adapted plants flourished and riparian forests established. The interaction of vegetation with the flood flows further influenced flow patterns and an even finer scale of microhabitats developed, supporting a great diversity of plants and animals (Scott and Marquiss 1984). Until the Gold Rush, people generally adapted to the patterns of flood and seasonal growth, exploiting the diversity and relying on natural cycles to produce the materials and food needed for their communities (Kelley 1989). With the Gold Rush (1848-1855) came disturbance of land in the middle and upper watersheds and a tremendous amount—1.5 billion cubic feet (Mount 1995)—of soil, sediments, and rocks found their way into the streams and rivers from the mining operations. At the same time, agriculture was being established in the valley and farmers sought out the richest soils, which tended to be where the riparian forests stood. Farmers rapidly deforested the valley floors and carved canal systems into the land to move irrigation water diverted from the rivers, during summer low flows, into their fields. A conflict rapidly emerged between valley farmers and miners over the sediments in the rivers and streams. Because the mining accelerated the erosion and transport of coarse sediment in the form of sand, gravel, and cobbles, when floods occurred, these sediments were deposited on fields that previously were only comprised of premier farm soils. The coarse sediments devalued the land and made farming difficult or, in some cases, not possible (James and Singer 2008). The controversy was taken into court and in 1884 Judge Lorenzo Sawyer put a stop to the discharge of mine tailings into streams (Federal Reporter Vol 18, 1884; Mount 1995). While this stopped the input of new coarse sediment, by this time millions of tons of debris were already loaded into streams and on their way down to the valley. Farmers seeking to stop flooding of their land in order to reap more crop production also wanted to stop the deposition of sediments on their fields. Initially, the solution was for individuals to build berms and levees, but the haphazard product did not resolve the issue (Kelley 1989). Ultimately, in the early 1900s, a unified system of levees and floodways was designed to provide farmers with more predictable and manageable flood flows and to control and move sediment through the system (fig. 28). While the farm interests were well served by the resulting flood protection systems, the riparian habitats of the Great Central Valley were rapidly succumbing to agricultural demand. The diversity and abundance of wildlife and plants that once graced the valley began to shrink and the dynamics of the ecosystem began to change (Grinnell and Miller 1944). Another change force that emerged was the need for additional summer water for agriculture. By the mid-1900s, dams had become a common element of the landscape. With the large dam building era in full swing, major dams were placed on all the major rivers that drain into the Central Valley. The large dams created three very distinct alterations to the ecology of the Central Valley: (1) they restructured the pattern of flow, greatly limiting the medium sized peak winter and spring flows while increasing late spring and summer flows, but without significant peaks (Kondolf 1997); (2) they dramatically increased the acreage of land under irrigation; and (3) they cut off access by anadromous fish to their natal streams and the floodplains they used for rearing grounds (Sommer et al. 2003). The plan for fish was to replace the loss of fish from lack of spawning habitat with hatchery bred fish. The result was a steady decline in populations of migrating fish. With this decline came a disruption of the nutrient cycles associated with fish returning from USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-411. 2020. 213 Figure 28—Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley Flood Control Systems. the ocean and resulted in further reduction in riparian productivity (Merz and Moyle 2006). With the flow patterns disrupted, plants and animals that had evolved to be in synchronization with the natural cycles were left to find limited room to persist at the edges of the remaining floodplain resource.
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